Kant and Theology at the Boundaries of Reason: FULL PDF

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 2010

Chris L. Firestone describes Kant and Theology at the Boundaries of Reason (KTBR) as "the attempt of a Christian scholar of Kant to show where theology gains a foothold in Kant's philosophy and how theologians have capitalized on these footholds to construct meaningful and robust theological systems" (viii). KTBR's audience is "anyone who wants an up-to-date analysis of the grounds for theology in Kant's philosophy and help with determining where theology must go in the future if we are to do theology in dialogue with Kant" (ix). In addition, it serves as a useful companion piece to Firestone's earlier work, co-authored with Nathan Jacobs, In Defense of Kant's Religion. In chapter one, "Can Theology Go Through Kant?" Firestone explains that there are two dominant approaches to Kant's philosophy of religion: the "traditional" approach, which sees Kant's critical philosophy as committed to some kind of "theological pessimism" (p. 1), ranging from, at worst, atheism to, at best, deism, and a "theologically affirmative" approach, which finds Kant's system to be "essentially positive in its posture toward the many claims and concerns of Christian theology" (p. 10). Chapters two and three of KTBR explain why one does not have to view Kant as theologically pessimistic, and chapters four to seven exhibit the various ways in which can take Kant to be theologically affirmative. Chapter two, "Knowledge and Cognition in Kant's Theoretical Philosophy," makes two claims. The first claim, which develops out of a discussion of the interpretations of transcendental idealism of P. F. Strawson and Henry Allison, is that the Critique of Pure Reason "does not constitute a complete system" (p. 27). This is because the first Critique tells us only what we can know (empirical claims and claims about the conditions necessary for experience) and what we cannot know (claims about matters R. Gressis (B)

Kant the Question of Theology (Cambridge University Press, 2017), 2017

God is a problematic idea in Kant's terms, but many scholars continue to be interested in Kantian theories of religion and the issues that they raise. In these new essays, scholars both within and outside Kant studies analyze Kant's writings and his claims about natural, philosophical, and revealed theology. Topics debated include arguments for the existence of God, natural theology, redemption, divine action, miracles, revelation, and life after death. The volume includes careful examination of key Kantian texts alongside discussion of their themes from both constructive and analytic perspectives. These contributions broaden the scope of the scholarship on Kant, exploring the value of doing theology in consonance or conversation with Kant. It builds bridges across divides that often separate the analytic from the continental and the philosophical from the theological. The resulting volume clarifies the significance and relevance of Kant's theology for current debates about the philosophy of God and religion.

Blackwell Companion to Nineteenth Century Theology (ed. David Fergusson, Oxford: Blackwell, 2011), 2010

"""'I had to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith’ (Critique of Pure Reason B xxx).1 This remark, taken from the preface to the second version of the Critique of Pure Reason, is one of Kant’s most famous. The philosophy of Immanuel Kant (17241804) has unparalleled significance for the theology and philosophy of the nineteenth century and beyond. The roles of knowledge and faith are central to that philosophy, a fact that until recently was heavily downplayed by philosophers who investigated epistemology and ethics in ways that ignored theological and historical questions. In this article, Kant’s philosophy will be presented in ways that make his theological commitments explicit, in two sections. The first section will sketch the shape of Kant’s thinking, and the second will present some of the technical arguments in relation to what are known technically as his theoretical, practical and aesthetic philosophy. These divisions will be explained in due course. Theologians continue to be interested in Kant today because he transforms certain questions inherited from his predecessors, especially those related to clarifying types of investigation, a shift from intuition to discursive reasoning, his attempt to offer a ‘rational’ account of respectable habits of thought and action, exploring the character of human freedom, and reconceiving the relation of philosophy to theology. Kant’s influence extends far beyond his significance for particular subsequent individual thinkers. His thought has left its mark on the shape of the modern state, not least the university, and the place of religious life and theological reflection within it.""

2014

This book offers a complete and internally cohesive interpretation of Religion. In contrast to the interpretations that characterize Religion as a litany of “wobbles”, fumbling between traditional Christianity and Enlightenment values, or a text that reduces religion into morality, the interpretation here offered defends the rich philosophical theology contained in each of Religion’s four parts and shows how the doctrines of the “Pure Rational System of Religion” are eminently compatible with the essential principles of Transcendental Idealism. http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415507868/

Heythrop Journal, 2013

A review of Chris Firestone's Kant and Theology at the Boundaries of Reason.

Ars Disputandi, 2010

From Transcendental Theology to Existential Kantian Theology I. Kant, theology, and rationality Chris L. Firestone's Kant and Theology at the Boundaries of Reason is an engaging and valiant attempt to understand and defend Kant's philosophical theology. I say 'valiant' because Kant's philosophical theology is notoriously difficult to understand. This is principally due to an apparent inconsistency between the four basic parts of his theory. Part 1. First, Kant works out a devastating logical, semantic, and epistemological critique of any possible proof for God's existence, including the ontological argument, the cosmological argument, and the design argumenta.k.a. 'the physico-theological argument' or the teleological argument-which has the immediate further implication that any possible proof for God's non-existence is also impossible, including the argument from evil, in either its classical metaphysical version or its more modern evidential version. More precisely, Kant argues that God's existence or non-existence is not only unknowable but also uncognizable, although at the same time God's existence remains thinkable. Now for Kant, 'knowledge' or Wissen is the same as a true belief that P which is sufficiently justified in both a subjective sense (in which case it is 'conviction' or Überzeugung) and also an objective or universally intersubjective sense (in which case it is 'certainty' or Gewissheit) (CPR A822/B850). 1 Apart from justification, knowledge also has two further substantive necessary conditions, namely (i) truth or 'objective reality,' which is the formal correspondence of a cognition with an actual or real-world object, and (ii) empirical meaningfulness or 'objective validity,' which is the necessary relatedness of any cognition to direct, non-conceptual sensory acquaintances or encounters with real individual worldly objects, i.e., 'empirical intuitions' (empirischen Anschauungen). By sharp contrast to knowledge, 'cognition' or Erkenntnis is either (1) according to the very 1 See I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. P. Guyer and A. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997). For references to the first Critique, I follow the common practice of using internal citations in parentheses using the abbreviation 'CPR', and giving page numbers from the A (1781) and B (1787) German editions only.

Journal of the History of Philosophy, 2015

The First Preface to Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason contains various characterizations of the distinction between biblical and philosophical theology. Similar characterizations are also found in the Preface to The Conflict of the Faculties. In both, Kant warns the philosopher against trespassing into the purview of the biblical theologian. Yet, in the actual body of both texts, we find numerous occasions where Kant deviates from the rules he initially articulates. The purpose of this paper is to identify these rules, discuss their apparent violations, and consider the implications of this divergence.

2005

Kant's Rational Foundations for Religious Faith is a work of philosophy and religion. The dissertation as a whole falls within the field of Kant studies. In particular, the interpretations of Kant made by several contemporary scholars are analysed in depth with the view to establishing the rational basis by which Kant thinks faith gains a foothold in his philosophical programme. Two obstacles to the establishment of faith in Kant's programme are presented. The first is the problem of coherence that Gordon Michalson expounds regarding Kant's Religion Within the Boundaries ofMere Reason. The second is the problem of knowledge as presented in the work of P. F. Strawson and others. In proposing a way past the latter of these two problems, a hypothesis is made for how to overcome the former. The proposal is to understand faith not in terms of knowledge, but instead in terms of cognition. When this is done, Kant's train of reasoning for the development of his transcendental theology becomes clear. It yields a hypothesis for interpreting Religion by focusing the combined resources of cognition and faith on certain underdeveloped aspects of Kant's thought. Chief of these underdeveloped aspects is the human moral disposition. I demonstrate that this hypothesis, when applied exegetically to Religion, overcomes the most significant objections raised by Michalson. Kant's rational foundations for faith are shown to reach their fullness when an existential decision is made to believe in God based on a simultaneous conviction in the meaningfulness of the world. For Kant, such an existential faith has a specific shape that is fleshed out in his analysis of human depravity as a problem for belief in the meaningfulness of the world a nd t he p ossible adoption of the disposition of the prototype of perfect humanity as solution to it. TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i Michalson takes this tendency of interpretation to be the predominant one insofar as it has given rise to a whole set of problems and approaches unique to the theological discussion after Kant. Michalson, however, notes that another prevalent tendency is to argue that Kant's philosophy implicitly advocates the 'abandonment of theism'. Interpretations of this kind understand Kant's philosophy and i ts i nfluence on theology to be primarily negative. This position, Michalson's own, argues that Kant's 'efforts to ameliorate the theologically destructive effects of the Critique of Pure Reason implicitly makes things worse for Christian theism, not better'.3 This tendency understands Kant's influence to be traceable down the predominately atheistic path of Feuerbach, Nietzsche, and Marx. Kant, according to this tendency, releases human autonomy and sets it up in such a way that it becomes imperialistic and reductionistic relative to theology in all its manifestations.4 My thesis is that Kant's late writings, most especially his classic text Religion, provide a consistent development of his moral foundations for theology. The faith that Kant made room for was indeed moral faith, but, as I will argue, it was more than just morality. I contend moral faith only comes to completion (and indeed fruition) for Kant in the context of his turn toward the topic of religion and the question of hope. This turn is not solely determined by Kant's moral philosophy, but instead is the result of ongoing developments in Kant's thinking on the transcendental nature of his philosophy. These developments, I suggest, are consonant with the doctrines of central concern to Kant's theoretical and practical philosophy and are propelled by further concerns expressed and only partially addressed in the Critique ofJudgement. In particular, the question of hope 3 Michalson, Kant and the Problem of God, 5. 4 For the purposes of this dissertation, interpretations of Kant's philosophy that tend to be received in a 6 This movement to the practical in the latter stages of the first Critique marks the beginning of the renowned fact-value bifurcation of philosophy and sets Kant on his later quest to 'bridge the gap' between nature and freedom that we find in the Critique ofJudgment. It also initiates a kind of moral metaphysic of cognition that will not reach its fullness until the arguments of Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason.

International Philosophical Quarterly, 2018